Getting Lucky in Kentucky
by cloudyjenn
Summary: Wherein sleeping arrangements are awkward, Sam teaches Castiel about picking up girls and Dean finds out what to do with your angel when he’s not really an angel anymore. Dean/Castiel
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This fic was written for 42footprints on livejournal for deancastiel's Renegade Angels challenge. Thank you to my beta, Jessica.

It started the night of that huge thunderstorm in Paducah, Kentucky.

Actually, come to think of it, maybe it started in that bar in Tuscaloosa.

No, still not right. It was probably the night Castiel fought those archangels. Although that only happened because of everything that happened in Heaven's waiting room.

Alright, let's just say it's one of those things that built up slowly. For argument's sake, we could say it started the moment Castiel laid his hands on Dean in the fiery depths of Hell, but that would be going back a little too far. After all, part of this story has already been told. So, in order not to cover familiar ground, let's just start off with Castiel's archangel fight and by the time this is over, you'll understand how we got from tentative friendship to making out in a rainstorm.

After Sam killed Lilith and let Lucifer free from his prison, Dean figured they were screwed. Screwed with their pants on. Screwed with a capital 'S'. He thought that was it. They were over. Castiel was over. The world was over and the angels were stupid for ever believing Dean would be able to do anything against the bright eye-searing light of immense power shooting from the crevices of blood cutting into the floor at their feet. His only consolation was that Sam was at his side and had helped Dean destroy the demon bitch that nearly Yoko Ono'd her way into breaking their relationship apart for good.

A relief, yes, but not quite as good as say, living another day and not being consumed in a flash of demonic radiance while Castiel was likely being blown to smithereens by his older brothers.

So, it's not quite enough to say that Dean was surprised when the light built into a beam that shot through the ceiling and away from them completely.

"Was that...?"

They exchanged a glance. It's a weird thing about siblings. Sometimes you can tell what the other is thinking without even looking at each other and it gets even worse when you actually do look at each other. Dean could tell they were both wondering the same thing. Why didn't Lucifer take over Sam's body?

Not that Dean isn't relieved, but now that it hasn't happened, he realized both of them kind of thought this was where the whole ordeal was building. Dean isn't the type to look a gift fallen angel in the mouth though, so he grabbed Sam's arm and tugged him away from the gaping burned hole and Ruby's dead empty body.

Dean didn't have much plan in mind beyond get the fuck out of here when he stumbled out of the convent, dragging Sammy along behind him. It wasn't until he saw the cars sitting outside the convent that he realized he'd been banking on finding Ruby's mustang.

But his baby was parked right there, under a big weeping willow. For a brief moment, longer than he probably had, Dean just stared at the car and when it sunk in, his heart began thudding in his chest. He couldn't waste another second worrying about it, but as he hauled Sam to the car, Dean couldn't help wondering if this was Castiel's screwed up idea of a goodbye present.

It's when they are forty miles down the road that Dean's hands finally stopped shaking and the buzzing in his ears died down enough for him to hear Sam's breath hitching continually in his lungs. It took another thirty miles before Dean found his voice.

"That went well."

When all else fails, sarcasm is best. That has been and always will be one of Dean's most treasured proverbs. Judging by the wild-eyed panic in Sam's eyes, it wasn't quite working as well for him.

"Dean," he gasped. "I did it. I started the apocalypse. I can't believe...I trusted...oh my God..."

"Sammy!" Dean used his harshest tone, the one he reserves for Sam's most special fuck-ups and you have to admit, releasing Lucifer into the world has got to top that list. "You listen to me. You screwed up, ok? So did I. We're both started this shit and we'll both end it." As far as Dean was concerned, he was more at fault since he broke the first seal to get himself out of pain and Sammy broke the last because he thought it was going to help people. "So stop feeling sorry for yourself and tell me what exit to take to get us back to Chuck's."

They'd reached the highway by then and Dean wasn't entirely sure he knew where they were in relation to Chuck's. He needed Sam to get his head out of his ass and play navigator. Sam's eyes were still kind of wide, but he tossed off a nod and dragged his phone out with trembling hands. He gave Dean the directions.

He only needed them for about forty-five minutes because that was when Castiel appeared in the backseat.

Dean nearly drove them off the road and wouldn't that have been somewhat ironic. Escaping the deadly wrath of Lucifer only to die violently by wrapping his beloved car around the nearest oak tree. It wouldn't be the worst way Dean's died in his hundreds of deaths, but he wouldn't want anything to happen to the car.

"Cas!" Once he straightened out the car, Dean veered it safely off the side of the road into park and spun around. "Dude, I thought you were toast for sure!"

"Toast? Why? What happened?" Sam's ability to care about anything, but how monumentally fucked they all were returned with sudden force. He grabbed Dean's arm and pinched hard. "What happened?"

"Ouch! Stop it," Dean snapped and may have slapped Sam's hand away in a girly manner. "Cas went head on with some archangels after he beamed me to you."

"Archangels? As in more than one, are you kidding me?" Sam's voice did that thing it does when he's freaked out and it goes all scratchy and booming. Dean didn't need more freaking right now. Not when he'd just realized that Castiel hadn't said anything yet and instead, had just been staring ahead sightlessly since he materialized in their backseat.

"Cas? Are you ok, man?" Dean gentled his tone, like he was talking to a scared puppy instead of a formidable Angel of the Lord. "Can you hear me?"

Dean didn't like the way Cas' hands were clutched together over his stomach or the tension holding Cas' body captive and when he started to slump to the side, it wasn't surprise, but rather anger that filled Dean near to bursting.

"Damn it, Cas," he spat because the dicks who really deserved Dean's ire weren't available. He grabbed Castiel by the upper arms, holding him in place and barked to Sam over his shoulder. "Hold him up!"

Sam obeyed while Dean kicked open the door and almost skidded to his knees on the gravel whirling around to the backdoor. Jerking it open with another curse just because, Dean slid into the seat and helped Sam guide Castiel's head into his lap.

"Do you...fuck...do you see any blood on his legs?" Dean asked while he ran his hands over Castiel's head and neck, checking for injury. If he weren't trying to swallow down a mess of sick worry and hot anger, Dean would have found it amusing when Sam planted his knees in the front seat and leaned his massive body over into the back, peering intently at Castiel's legs.

"No. Do you think they hurt him so bad he can't heal up?" Sam asked, voice muffled by the blood running to his head.

Dean didn't hear the question because he'd managed to pry Castiel's hands away from his stomach and was trying not to throw up bile at what he saw. A long and jagged gash cut into the flesh of Castiel's belly and when his hands released it, bright red blood welled up and spilled down the sides of Castiel's body. Gross, yes, but that wasn't what made Dean feel the contents of his stomach shift.

The wound was trying to heal itself.

On either side of the injury, the edges of torn flesh reached for each other sluggishly, trying and failing to heal together. Dean only watched in horror for a brief moment before he tore off his jacket, then his shirt and pressed it against the seeping wound. Castiel whimpered through the pain and turned his face into Dean's stomach.

"Sorry, buddy," Dean muttered as he pressed harder.

"Dean, he's-"

"I know," Dean bit. As many times as Castiel had been thrown around and Dean had never seen him sustain an injury that wasn't healed instantly.

"Get us to a motel," he said between clenched teeth. With gentleness he didn't think he'd have possessed in that moment, Dean cradled Castiel's head in one hand and lifted it, scooting until he could shut the door behind him. Castiel made another one of those hurt moans that made Dean want to seriously kill something, but it couldn't be helped. "Sorry," he said again and laid Castiel's head in his lap while the other hand kept his favorite green flannel pressed to the wound. "Man, you owe me a new shirt."

So that's how Dean found himself in the backseat of his own car holding Castiel's guts inside his body while Sammy drove like bat out of...well, anyway, drove very fast away from the site of Lucifer's reentry into the world.

All in all, he'd seen better days.

* * *

It took them thirty minutes to reach the nearest town and its own brand of craptastic motels. Thirty minutes Dean spent watching his green shirt turn crimson and unconsciously brushing Castiel's bangs off his forehead time and again. By the time Sam secured them a room in a true and actual dump called the 'Valhalla', Dean thought the blood had slowed somewhat. Not that he'd chanced pulling the shirt away. Just that it seemed like the stain of blood, Castiel's blood holy fuck, wasn't growing as quickly.

Sammy kept casting furtive glances around them as he helped Dean haul Castiel out of the Impala and into their room, but Dean could care less if National Geographic were taking pictures of the process. The only thing he could think about, wanted to think about, was getting Castiel somewhere horizontal, so he could stitch up the wound and find out what happened. He couldn't imagine it mattered very much anymore if they got in trouble with the law.

"Set him here," Dean instructed. His hands tucked under Castiel's arms, Dean maneuvered him until Castiel's head was resting on a pillow. Sam, who was continuing admirably in his 'Castiel leg duty', swung the lower half of the angel into place and instantly reached up to tug Cas' ruined shirt out of his pants.

Something weird happened inside Dean.

It was kind of like a combination of his heart dropping a few inches and his stomach filling with acid. Dean had no idea what it meant, just that there was a territorial element because for a split second all he could think was that another fucking someone had their hands on Cas and it was Dean's fault. Whatever the feeling was, it made him feel sick and stupid, but before he could think to stop himself, he caught Sam's hand and threw it off.

"Go and get the kit," he growled. This was his problem. Dean was the person who'd talked Castiel into recklessly throwing his life away. He'd be the one who fixed it. If Sam would just fucking hurry up and give him the kit before Castiel bled out all over the fucking floor.

"Ok, ok, calm down," Sam placated as he handed Dean their medical kit and Dean felt himself flush. He hadn't realized he'd been talking out loud. For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Dean muttered an apology. Then he turned his attention to Castiel. Sweat gleamed on Cas' forehead and temples, turning his hair even darker and plastering it to his skull. His eyes were shut, but only because they were clenched tightly closed in pain. Dean thought Cas was conscious, but couldn't tell if he were coherent.

"Cas?" He carefully peeled the sopping bloody shirt from Castiel's stomach and earned himself a soft groan. As he thought, the blood wasn't running as quickly. Not that it made him feel any better. "Can you hear me?"

Castiel's white button down went next. Dean didn't want to move him, so he just took the scissors and cut bits of the fabric away. The wound was still trembling, still trying to heal.

"Hey, Cas, take it easy," Dean said, struck by a sudden idea. "Just relax, ok? You can't heal right now, so just relax and let me fix you up, ok?"

The straining continued for a moment, so Dean, with an embarrassed glance to Sam, leaned closer to Castiel's face and stroked his fingers through Castiel's hair.

"Relax for me, Castiel," he whispered. He didn't know if it was his tone or if Cas became distracted trying to decide why Dean used his full name, but his grimace slowly smoothed away. A quick glimpse at the wound told Dean it had stopped trying to heal itself.

"Thanks."

Dean felt Sam's gaze on his face, but if he stopped his life every time Sam gave him a searching look, he wouldn't have time to shit or eat. So, instead he got busy cleaning and closing the wound. Once he'd wiped away all the blood, Dean discovered the tear wasn't quite as large as he feared, though he wouldn't have been surprised if Castiel had managed to heal it a little during their drive.

"See, this isn't so bad," Dean commented as he sewed Castiel's skin together. Sam snorted.

"Not bad? Since when do we need to patch Castiel up?" Dean felt him stand up and begin pacing. "Dean, what if he's not even an angel anymore? How are we going to know what the angels are doing if Cas isn't our go between?"

"Dude, shut up," Dean hissed in Sam's general direction, though he kept his eyes on his arduous stitching job. "You're going to make him feel bad."

It wasn't like Castiel was only useful for information. Although, Dean couldn't really say what else he _was_ useful for and yeah, maybe that was all they used to care about when it came to angels, but things were different now. He didn't know how, but they were.

"Besides, he was trying to heal up, so he must have some angel mojo left in there. It's just...he needs to charge up the batteries."

That had to be it because Dean refused to entertain the notion that Castiel had lost his Grace on Dean's behalf.

Sam flopped into a chair and let Dean sew Castiel in silence.

* * *

It's weird how normal problems keep on trucking even during bizarre events like the end of the world.

About an hour after Dean finished performing minor surgery on an angel, he was struck by gut wrenching hunger. The kind that makes you feel like your stomach is trying to gnaw its way through your spinal cord and sometimes food doesn't even sound good, that's how hungry you are. He tried to remember how long ago it was since he ate, but couldn't. Probably because his last meal was interrupted when he was slammed against a wall by an armful of ultra-determined angel.

The same angel who was now sleeping at Dean's side.

Yeah, bizarre events were a dime a dozen around the Winchesters nowadays.

Anyway, the point is, Dean's hunger sent Sam out into the night in the search for food with Dean's parting advice to 'avoid anyone who looks like they might secretly be the Devil in disguise.' Dean assigned himself the surprisingly pleasurable task of watching Castiel sleep. Not pleasurable in that creepy stalker way that Cas preferred. More pleasurable in a sort of 'I never thought I'd see this' way. A novelty if you will. Castiel looked different asleep. Which Dean wouldn't have expected because it seemed like a human attribute. But there was no denying that Castiel was less stern in his sleep. His features were utterly relaxed. Dean hadn't realized how uptight Cas looked most of the time.

"You're going to be the death of me," Dean confided to the sleeping form. "Sam already was and now you're taking a shot." He sighed. "I gotta get less stressful friends."

It annoyed him to no end that he felt a flush of affection when he said the word 'friends'. At least he assumed it was affection. Dean didn't have a great deal of experience with the concept of having a friend he made for himself. So it could just as easily been acid reflux. Either way, it was a good thing when Sam showed up with the food because it made Dean stop staring at Castiel and wondering if angels were allowed to have friends.

They ate in silence, each other shooting Castiel what they probably thought were sly glances, but were in fact totally obvious. For his part, Castiel didn't move or otherwise make a peep until a few hours after Sam had thrown out the empty food bags. And instead of groaning and slowly waking up like a normal person, Castiel went from flat and out cold to sitting up and staring wildly around the room in an instant.

"Cas?" Dean leapt up from the motel's one table and took a cautious step towards Castiel. "You ok, man?"

"Dean." His eyes snapped to Dean's and while they were no less panicked, they were at least focused. "He's gone."

"I...what? Who's gone?" Dean asked uneasily.

"Jimmy Novak." Dean hadn't heard Castiel sound this wrecked since they met in Dean's fishing dream. "They took him. The archangels...they killed him."

Dean's blood ran cold and his stomach clenched into knots. And not just because he felt sick inside over Jimmy's final demise, but because Castiel's face was glowing with emotion. More emotion that Dean had ever seen there before. Regret mixed with guilt mixed with sorrow mixed with...fear. There was no doubt about it. Castiel was terrified.

"I don't understand," Dean said. Against his better judgment, because he knew exactly how this looked, Dean sat next to Castiel on the bed and curled a hand around Castiel's wrist. "Why'd they do that?"

"It's my punishment," Castiel said. His eyes fell to Dean's hand and for a minute, Dean thought it was going to stop Castiel from continuing, but then he was talking again, ragged and frantic as though the words were making him sick to his stomach and he wanted nothing more than to spit them out as quickly as possible.

"They stole him from me. They stole him and trapped me." His grief was palpable, a thick veil falling over his face.

"Trapped?" That did not sound good at all.

"This body," Castiel said and he jerked his hand away from Dean to press against his own chest. "Human bodies. We're not meant to own them, Dean. Not meant to rule them. I can't leave this body an empty shell. It would be an abomination."

"Wait a second," Sam cut in, which was good because Dean could do little more than gape at Castiel. "When you say 'can't', do you mean you don't want to? Or you physically can't?"

When Castiel answered Sam, his eyes stayed fixed on Dean's and there was such overwhelming loneliness there that Dean felt the breath shallow in his lungs.

"I can't. Not until this body is destroyed and if I let that happen, I won't...I would be abandoning my duty," he finished, but Dean thought he meant to say something else. Which was a new development. Castiel always said exactly what he meant.

"But you're still an angel?" Dean asked softly.

"I don't know what I am," Castiel answered and he finally looked away from Dean, to the fidgeting hands now curled in his lap. "I can't hear my brothers. At least not very clearly. I don't know what else has changed, but I know I have changed." A sardonic smile curled along one side of Castiel's mouth. Dean hated the way it looked. "What's the saying? I'm half the man I used to be."

Being seated more deeply into a human body apparently turned one cynical.

"That's real funny, Cas," Dean deadpanned. "Meanwhile, while you were out, Sam and I managed to start the apocalypse." And as he was saying it, Dean realized he was effectively telling Castiel that he'd made his sacrifice for nothing.

"I see," Castiel said, rather more calmly than Dean suspected he felt about the issue. "Then my imprisonment is the least of your worries."

* * *

The only thing they could do that first night was stay put and wait for Castiel to heal.

After gauging his own wound, Cas believed he'd be back to fighting shape by the next morning and though he told the brothers they should just leave him there, Dean refused, on the grounds that a fuzzy connection to angel radio was better than no connection at all. Castiel pretty much immediately ruined that excuse by being unable to discern any information of any use. Sam couldn't find anything unusual in the news either, so they were basically clueless about Lucifer's whereabouts or plan of action. When they questioned Cas about it, he guessed that Lucifer sought Sam for his second in command rather than as a vessel.

"His power would be wasted when combined with Lucifer's much more significant repository," Castiel had said. Sam actually seemed kind of annoyed about that, though Dean didn't know if it was because of the slight against his power or because he didn't like being referred to as a commodity.

At any rate, Dean made Sam swear on a stack of hotel bibles that he wouldn't become Lucifer's first lieutenant.

The next morning found Dean in a shitty mood because he'd spent the night sleeping upright in the room's one chair while Castiel and Sam sprawled across the two beds. Stretching hurt like a bitch, but Dean did it anyway as he walked over to Castiel and poked him in the shoulder.

"Hey. Wake up."

This time, when Castiel stirred, he did it like a normal person. Sometime in the night, he'd turned over on his stomach, which Dean assumed meant it was now healed. His arms stretched over his head, smacking against the wall with a crunching noise that was personally satisfying to Dean, and his feet popped out from the other end of the puffy green hotel blanket. Dean made a mental note to get Cas to remove his shoes the next time he went to sleep.

"So I take it part of your diminished capacities includes the need for sleep," Dean said. He hadn't been sure yesterday when Cas fell asleep against him if it was due to a permanent need or to speed his recovery. When Castiel didn't answer, Dean clasped his hands together and rubbed them, considering all the insidious ways he could torture Castiel into the world of the waking. He'd just decided to start with blowing in Castiel's ear when the angel flopped onto his stomach and started with surprise at how close Dean was leaning over him.

Then there was a weird long moment where they just stared at each other.

Looking down into Castiel's face from above made it look different. Softer somehow or maybe that was the expression he wore, abruptly shy and self-conscious. Castiel was vulnerable like this because seeing him this way should have been a secret Dean didn't know. Except he couldn't pull himself away. So the task fell to Castiel.

"Dean?" Sleep roughened his already coarse voice. "What are you doing?"

He honestly didn't know.

* * *

The next few weeks were filled with experimentation.

Among other things involving the apocalypse, but that isn't our story really. Suffice it to say that things got a little hairy pretty quickly. Dean nearly lost several important body parts in a prolonged battle with two mega powerful demons, but the combined power of Sam and Castiel was enough to burn them out of their hosts before any permanent damage could occur.

More relevant to the climax of this story were the changes that Castiel began to catalogue.

The first were the obvious changes. The need for sleep overwhelmed him every third night or so. On those nights when Cas wasn't tired, he positioned himself beside their latest motel room's door and kept a watch. It seemed to relax Sam, who slept a lot better with their angelic alarm system. Dean, on the other hand, couldn't sleep on display. Not that Castiel spent the whole night gazing at him. It just seemed that way whenever he glanced over at Cas and saw the pinpricks of moonlight shining in Cas' eyes pointed in his direction. He never could tell if Cas had already been looking at him or only turned to look at him when he noticed Dean moving to look at him.

Dean lost a lot of sleep trying not to look at Castiel looking at him.

Those nights when Castiel did sleep weren't much better because of the lack of room. If Dean thought he and Sam had it bad trying to check into motels together, it was nothing compared to the raised eyebrows they got when the three of them requested a single room. He could just see the clerks imagining the epic all-night gay sexcapades. If anyone asked, Sam always explained that he and Dean were brothers and Castiel was their cousin. Not that it was any of their business, of course.

Anyway, Dean refused to let Castiel sleep on the floor, but also refused to share a bed with either him or Sam. So half the time, he slept on the floor or in a chair and half the time he slept in a bed while Castiel squeezed onto the other bed with Sam. This was an extremely comical visual that was stored on Dean's cell phone multiple times.

The sleep discovery was quickly followed by the hunger discovery.

Castiel understood sleep better than hunger. Probably because he tended to fall asleep like a narcoleptic, awake one moment and slobbering on Dean's shoulder the next. Hunger, on the other hand, baffled him in the beginning. For the first few days, Castiel was fine. Focused on their latest problems and trying his best to deal with his new existence. Round about the fourth day, Dean began to notice that Castiel seemed a little curt. Well, more curt than normal anyway. He didn't say anything about it because none of them were exactly in a good headspace what with the end being nigh and all.

Then one afternoon, Castiel stood up from a tableful of research and nearly toppled into the floor. Dean shot out of his chair and grabbed Cas around the waist.

"What is your problem?" he asked, looking down into glassy blue eyes. Cas sagged against Dean's body and pressed his forehead into Dean's shoulder.

"This body has been growing weaker," he mumbled into Dean's shirt. "I didn't want to alarm you."

"So you thought waiting until you were on the verge of collapse would be less alarming for me, did you?" Dean asked, aggravated and scared and aggravated by how scared he felt. Dragging Castiel over to the bed, Dean dumped him out of his arms and knelt before him, hands curled around Cas' arms to keep him upright. He peered up into Cas' face.

"Weaker how? What's it feel like?"

"Just..." Cas shook his head and covered his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I feel a painful emptiness, but it's also feels full. As if the emptiness were a living thing gnawing inside me. It makes my stomach and head ache terribly."

Relief flooded Dean's body so strongly, it made him lightheaded and he pitched forward, letting his forehead fall onto Castiel's knee.

"I'm going to kill you," he told Castiel's thigh.

"Why?" Cas asked plaintively.

Gathering his strength, Dean popped up from the floor and stalked back to the table. Throwing himself into a chair, he grabbed a nearby pack of peanuts he'd been saving for himself and whipped it at Castiel's head.

"It's called hunger, you idiot."

Castiel's hunger didn't act like normal humans. He could go two or three days without feeling the side effects, though he chose to join the Winchesters for a meal at least once a day. But it was a pretty handy set-up if they ever ran low on funds and needed someone to go without for a little while. For the most part, Castiel liked healthy food like crisp raw vegetables or lean turkey sandwiches, though he was known to steal French fries from Dean's plate. Dean didn't think too much about what it meant that he let Castiel get away with it.

On the angel side of matters, Castiel's tests of his old powers proved that he could hear his brothers sometimes if he concentrated very hard, though he'd yet to hear anything useful. He couldn't leave Jimmy's old body, but he still had his wings. He could still travel around the world in the blink of an eye, but he could no longer travel through time. Potentially useful, but all parties agreed it'd be more helpful to keep Castiel close by than to send him wandering the countryside. Castiel agreed because he confessed he couldn't sense Lucifer anymore anyway and would have no idea where to start looking. Dean agreed because he knew he'd go crazy with worry if Castiel was out on his own hunting for the Devil. And Sam agreed because he knew his brother very very well.

So that's how it went for a little over a month. They moved from city to city, searching for clues and picking up the occasional hunt along the way. Castiel grew used to his new alternative lifestyle and Dean grew used to having the angel less than five feet away and Sam grew used to the way Dean glared at him when he woke up with Castiel's face pressed into his neck.

Then the natural disasters started.

First it was an earthquake in California. Nothing unusual except it was a little on the strong side. Then there was a bout of freak hailstorms in Michigan followed by a strange hurricane that invaded Texas, but didn't dissipate until hundreds of miles inland. It was the night of massive F5 tornadoes in Alabama that drew the Winchesters and Castiel. Mostly because they were close by and had a chance of arriving on the scene before Lucifer skipped town.

They ended up in Tuscaloosa. Half the town was gone, wiped away as it never existed. The other half was in pristine condition. The divide cut exactly through the center of town, leaving civilians confused and hunters in no doubt that the storm was supernatural.

Dean and Sam posed as FEMA officials and questioned local residents while Castiel pretended to be a bystander and looked into their hearts for the truth of their words. Like their own personal lie detector. Later, he verified that while there might have been some exaggeration, none of the witnesses were lying when they told the brothers about a tall broad shouldered man in a three-piece suit strolling down the main drag of town during the height of the storm.

Later that night, Castiel told Dean he felt that these ecological catastrophes were Lucifer's way of celebrating his rising and that the major confrontations between angel and demon were still in their future. Not that Dean needed another reason to hate Lucifer, but the thought of killing hundreds of people as fun made Dean sick with rage. He began to fervently hope the angels were right about his destiny to kill the son of a bitch.

They searched the town for two whole days and found nothing. Sam, as their lone supernatural radar, sensed nothing. Dean had the feeling that Lucifer wasn't going to be found until he was good and ready.

On their third morning in Tuscaloosa, something happened that ripped Dean's attention clean away from the whole Lucifer thing.

It was one of Castiel's sleeping nights. Sam had flat out refused to share his bed with anyone, so Dean piled up a bunch of blankets on the floor between the beds and slept there. When he woke up the next morning, Castiel's hand was warm against his chest. Under his shirt.

Castiel's hand was up Dean's shirt.

The whole thing looked weird. Still on the bed, Castiel's face was smashed into the edge and his right arm hung down into Dean's space. Somehow, during the night, his hand had snuck under the edge of Dean's t-shirt and his really rather warm fingers were splayed directly over Dean's heart. Dean supposed he was lucky Castiel's hand hadn't wandered in the opposite direction and if the image made him feel funny in an unexpected way, Dean chose to ignore it. Instead, Dean extracted his hand and gently tucked it under Castiel's hip.

"Stay," he ordered the hand.

Castiel never woke up during the interaction and more importantly, neither did Sam. Dean claimed the shower and by the time he got out, Sam was up and ready for his turn.

Castiel slept on.

Dean shrugged and ate breakfast. He was halfway through cheese danish that had seen better days when the moaning started. Just a soft mewling whimper that Dean dismissed as waking up noises. Then louder , resonating from deep in Castiel's chest, harsh wet gasping sounds that sped Dean's pulse and seared heat across his face. He knew he should do something, anything but stare as Castiel's hips began moving, pistoning and holy shit Cas was humping the bed in his sleep. Torn between the weirdest desire to watch this to its natural conclusion and to stop Cas before his heart beat out of his chest, Dean did nothing for long enough that Cas' moans actually turned to staccato grunts and his hips began jerking off rhythm.

Then Sam's shower shut off and Dean launched himself out of the chair to Castiel's side. No way was he going to let this continue with Sam in the room.

"Hey, wake up," he pleaded and maybe he felt a little guilty for interrupting what was probably Castiel's first orgasm, but it was better than letting him soak the bed sheets just as Sam walked into the room.

"Cas! Get up!"

Castiel whined low in the back of his throat and he sounded amazingly annoyed for someone who was still mostly asleep. Dean chanced shaking Castiel's shoulders, though the last thing he wanted to do was touch the angel. The shaking did the trick because Castiel suddenly rolled onto his back with a gasp of surprise and when his eyes snapped open, Dean could clearly see the confusion mixed with the arousal dilating Cas' pupils.

"Dean?"

"It's time to get up," Dean rasped, then backed away, retreating to the safety of the table just as Sam exited the bathroom for real this time.

"Your turn," he called cheerfully to Castiel.

Slowly sitting up, Castiel stared down at his lap, perplexed. The blanket still covered most of Castiel's body, so Dean couldn't tell what was happening, but he didn't have to guess because Castiel didn't know the difference between 'appropriate' and 'inappropriate'.

"Dean, I think I have an erection," he said calmly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Sam screech to a halt, hand outstretched to grab his phone from the bedside table. The warmth still lingering within Dean exploded into a flushing heat of embarrassment and that curious protectiveness he first felt when Cas was injured. Suddenly, Dean wanted nothing more than for Sam to go really far away, but there seemed little chance of that happening because as soon as Sam recovered, he sat down on the bed and leaned forward, fascinated.

"Really? Have you had one before?"

Trust Sam to treat this like a fun learning experience.

"Not that I know of," Castiel answered and he shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like this feeling at all."

"Seriously?" Dean blurted because this may be awkward as hell, but come on, erections are one of life's primary joys.

"It..." Another shift of discomfort. "It feels like reaching for something that's not there," Castiel complained.

"Oh." Come to think of it, if the only feeling you knew of sex was the build-up and had no concept of the climax, it probably would suck.

"You need-" A whirlwind of vivid images regarding what Castiel needed flashed through Dean's mind, robbing him of the rest of his words.

"If it gets too bad, you sometimes have to, um...well, take care of it yourself," Sam said after giving Dean a strange look.

Castiel frowned. "You mean masturbation."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, now grinning and Dean considered punching him. "Lesson number one of tension release when you live with other people. The shower is your best friend."

Dean shot out of his seat again. "I'm going to find something to eat," he growled and escaped out the door before Sam could start giving Castiel pointers on the best ways to stroke himself to climax.

When he returned an hour later, Castiel was dressed and slumped in Dean's vacated chair, legs stretched carelessly before him, head resting against the back of the chair and he looked far more relaxed than he ever had. "Hello, Dean," he slurred.

"Great," Dean mumbled under his breath. That's all he needed. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, addicted to jacking off.

"Hey, I had an idea while you were out," Sam announced from his seat on the bed. A book of magic lay open on his knees and Dean felt a thrill of hope that Sammy had managed to find a viable location spell. Quite frankly, the sooner Dean could stop the Devil and quit living on top of his brother and an angel, the better.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We've all been running nonstop for over a month now and clearly, we've built up some tension," Sam said, nodding in Castiel's direction. Cas looked anything, but tense as he lay puddled in that chair, eyes fluttering half between open and closed. "Well, he was tense earlier anyway and I think we all need a break."

"That's your idea? We need a break?" Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't think finding Lucifer is more important?"

"I'm not suggesting we drive to Key West, Dean," Sam bitched. "We were going to finish up here in Tuscaloosa, then get going tomorrow morning anyway. I just think we could stand to spend a little time doing something fun tonight since we're just going to be here anyway."

"Oh." Dean glanced at Castiel, who gave him a beatific smile. "What'd you have in mind?"

"Well..." He dragged the word out for too long, raising Dean's suspicions. "I thought it might be interesting to take Castiel to a bar."

"You want to get him drunk?" Not the world's worst idea, Dean thought. If nothing else, the comedic value was worth the price of admission. And they'd be there to take care of the poor guy, make sure he didn't do anything too embarrassing or dangerous.

"Drunk or maybe, I don't know...teach him about the opposite sex," Sam said, casual and smooth as if he hadn't just suggested the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Dean's hands curled into fists at his side.

"I'm sorry? Did you just suggest we whore out an angel of the Lord?" The venom in his tone surprised them both, judging by the way Sam's eyebrows crawled into his hairline.

"Look, Dean, for better or worse, that body belongs to him now and apparently, all systems are go," Sam said, arms crossed over his chest. "Or would you rather he abstained forever?"

Truthfully, the answer was yes, but if Dean said that, he'd get a thirty minute lecture about how Dean, of all people, wasn't allowed to demand anyone abstain from sex and if anyone in the room was a whore, it was Dean. And any other number of accusations Sam could fling that would have more than a grain of truth to them. So instead, Dean turned to Castiel and gave him a stern look.

"Do you want to go and pick up women?"

"No," Castiel said and Dean experienced a brief moment of triumph that petered out when Cas kept talking. "But I will admit to being curious about human sexuality. It never affected me before, but this body..." He trailed a hand down his chest in an obscene manner. Or at least, obscene as far as Dean was concerned.

"It feels _so_ much," he breathed and the thought of Castiel unleashing his untamed sexual fervor onto the women of Tuscaloosa sickened Dean. They'd be helpless when faced with the dark heat glowing in Castiel's strange ancient eyes.

"Isn't it, like...illegal for you guys to have sex?" Dean stuttered, hopeful the rules were on his side.

"For angels, yes," Castiel confessed. "But I'm not angel anymore. Not really. It wouldn't be wrong of me to use this body because I own it now. However much I wish that weren't true," he added, the bitterness in his voice erasing the erotic edge.

"That's decided then," Sam said, popping up from the bed. "And don't even tell me you aren't interested in having some fun," he added to Dean. "When was the last time you were alone with a girl anyway?"

The fact that Dean couldn't automatically remember meant that in this, Sam probably had a point.

Which is how they came to be in a bar in the surviving half of Tuscaloosa on a night three weeks before Dean's life changed forever during a storm in Kentucky.


	2. Chapter 2

"Alright, so, what kind of girls do you like anyway?"

The bar they found was fuller than Dean expected, probably because the locals needed a good drink after that storm. His well-trained eye swept the room. To be honest, some of the women he saw were uncommonly hot, but he was looking for Castiel, so his standards were different. Before Castiel even said anything, Dean had dismissed most of the women in the room as too short, too tall, too slutty, too blonde, too curvy, too skinny and so on.

"I've never thought about it," Castiel answered Sam as he peered around the bar.

"Not even earlier?" Sam asked. "I told you it'd be easier if you used your imagination."

"Dude, what the hell did you tell him while I was gone?" Dean had been kidding about those pointers, after all.

"Nothing too graphic, I promise. Just that he might need a little visual reinforcement," Sam explained as he led them through the smoky room towards a table near the bar.

"You don't have to go into details," he added to Castiel. "Just think about the type of girl you imagined earlier and it might help give you an idea of what you find attractive," he finished and if Dean had looked away just a split second earlier, he would have missed the smile hiding at the corner of Sam's mouth and he wouldn't have felt suspicion start to grow in his chest.

"I see," Cas said blandly.

"How about her?" Sam nodded towards a slender woman in her late twenties who was leaning against the wall beside a ratty old pool table. In Dean's opinion, she was rather unremarkable. Too athletic to be womanly and far too tall. Probably taller than Castiel even.

"She's got nice eyes. Nice big green eyes," Sam said and there was no doubt now that laughter threaded through his tone. He was having way too much fun with this to be innocent.

Castiel turned to contemplate the woman, giving Dean the opportunity to kick Sam under the table and glare at him in a way that totally said, 'What the fuck are you doing?' Sam smirked in reply and by the time Cas turned back around, the brothers' faces were neutral.

"I think not," Cas decided.

"Well, you know, just go with what comes naturally," Sam counseled as he stood. "Pick the person you're most drawn to. No matter what."

And with that bizarre advice, Sam drifted to the bar and struck up a conversation with a cute redhead waiting for a drink.

"I think Sam finds this experiment amusing," Castiel confided to Dean.

"Sam has a pretty rotten sense of humor."

Castiel's eyes caught on something and he asked absently, as he gazed at whatever it was, "Which woman do you find most attractive, Dean?"

Dean looked over the available women again, this time with his own personal parameters in mind and shrugged. There was a pretty nice looking curly-haired woman sitting alone at a table across the room, but not nice enough to really tempt Dean out of his chair. Besides, he was far more interested in following Castiel's gaze towards what turned out to be an extremely busty blonde, laughing and drinking with a group of other girls.

It was 'too slutty' from before. With her low-cut blouse and far too tight skirt. Dean's lip curled in disgust. No way in this world was this chick good enough for Cas. If Cas went home with her, he'd only get a quick fuck. Cas deserved someone who'd take his time. Her time. Whatever. Someone who'd slowly introduce Cas to the joys of sex and take good care of him.

"I don't know about that one," Dean cautioned.

"Why?"

"Just...You should avoid woman who look too available," Dean said.

"That didn't seem to stop you in the past," Castiel said, a slightly accusatory lilt to his tone.

"I'm different," Dean said.

"How so?" Stubborn and annoyed, Cas looked remarkably like Sam when he got pissy with Dean.

"I've had sex before, that's how. You don't know what you're getting yourself into," Dean explained as patiently as he could when all he really wanted to do was drag Cas out of there by his ear.

"I'm not naive, Dean," Castiel argued. "Just because I've never experienced sex doesn't mean I don't understand how it's done. You should try to remember that I'm considerably older than you. I've seen more humans copulating than you've even met in your short life."

"Seeing and doing are nowhere near the same thing, Cas," Dean snapped, inexplicably hurt by the idea that Cas didn't need his help. "But hey, you're a big boy. If you want to fuck Barbie McSluttypants, don't let me stop you," he snarled. He pushed himself out of the chair and stalked over to Curly-Haired Girl, intent on ignoring Castiel and maybe finding a way of salvaging this stupid night.

Curly-Haired Girl's name turned out to be Megan and a bunch of other stuff about her that Dean didn't hear because he was so busy ignoring Castiel, it took up most of his attention. The flock of women around Barbie giggled when Castiel approached them. Stupid angel. He was probably being adorably awkward. They'd be fighting over which one of them got to take the idiot home before this was over, though Cas had managed to cull Barbie from the rest of the women.

"Are you alright?"

Dean blinked at Megan. "I'm sorry. What now?"

"You know, if I were you, I'd just go over and talk to her," Megan said.

"Talk to who?" Dean asked, genuinely bewildered.

"Whoever it is you keep trying not to look at," Megan said with a smile. Dean's face must have betrayed his guilt because Megan laid a hand on his arm and shook her head. "I'm not offended, really. Sometimes it's just hard to go for what you really want. But here's a nickel's worth of free advice. Don't wait around for someone else to snap her up. Life's far too short," she said. The sadness in her brown eyes gave Dean pause, made him wonder what happened to this girl and whether she could see the answering grief in his own eyes. Because she was right. Dean's life was too short. Had been too short and was in danger of being too short again.

The only problem was he didn't really know what he wanted.

"So get out of here before I bring them over here myself." Megan pushed at his arm. "Besides, no other guys are going to sit here if you don't go away."

Dean gave her a grateful smile and started to apologize, but then he glanced over to where Castiel and Barbie should have been.

They were gone.

* * *

"Cas! Castiel, answer me!"

If Dean had been anywhere but in the parking lot of a bar where people were expected to act drunkenly, he might have been arrested. As it was, he drew the curious glance of more than few passersby. What he didn't draw, to his chagrin, was the presence of a certain half-angel.

"Don't tell me you can't hear me!" Dean shouted.

"Dean?" Sam appeared in the bar's doorway, the cute redhead at his side. Worry darkened his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"What the matter is that Cas is off fucking some random girl," Dean barked.

"Seriously?" Sam asked, amazed.

"Yes, Sam. What did you think was going to happen when you brought him here _to pick up girls_?"

Discomfort and something very like guilt shifted over Sam's features. "I didn't think he'd actually...I thought..."

"You thought it'd be hilarious to make him uncomfortable," Dean said, furious now as he really thought about it. "You think this is some kind of joke, don't you? Well, it's not, Sam. He's not used to these feelings. He's confused and alone. Do you understand that? He's alone for the first time in like, millions of years and we've just delivered him into the hands of chick who doesn't even know him. Not like us, not like he needs."

The tirade shocked and scared Dean, but he couldn't take it back, couldn't stop the feeling that he'd failed Castiel. Cas protected Dean from angels and demons and in return, Dean should have protected him from humans, from the sort of emotional hurt that could happen when it came to sex and love. And instead, he'd pushed Cas towards this woman.

"You're right," Sam said softly. "I wasn't thinking. I thought he would've...I expected him to choose differently."

Sam's genuine contrition deflated Dean's anger, at least the anger directed at Sam. He was still pretty pissed at himself. After, Castiel was Dean's pseudo-angel to deal with, not Sam's.

"Look, just...just go on and have fun. I'll find him," Dean said wearily.

"Are you sure? I can help-"

"No," Dean interrupted him. "Someone should have some fun tonight," he said, nodding towards and acknowledging the redhead for the first time. Another reason to be annoyed with himself. Losing it in front of strangers and probably making her wonder what he meant by 'millions of years.'

"Ok, um, just call me when you find him, alright?"

"I will," Dean promised. Their eyes met for a long moment, one of those sibling moments mentioned earlier, the kind that made Dean feel better about life even though Sam hadn't actually said or done anything to help. Then Sam started to walk away, but to Dean's surprise, Redhead paused and gave Dean a small smile.

"I hope you find him," she said, her lilting voice gentle and somehow knowing.

Then they were gone and Dean was back to shouting for Castiel to answer him. He hoped this wouldn't be like the time out behind Bobby's place because Dean was not in the mood to strip his vocal chords bare. So he was pretty happy when he heard the flutter of wings about twenty minutes later.

"You're being distracting, Dean," Cas said.

Bile rose in Dean's throat. "So I was interrupting something, huh?"

"Just a strange conversation," Castiel promised. He'd appeared under a street lamp. The light shone down over him, turning his features sharp and unearthly. The look wasn't helped by the way Cas held himself rigid, hands shoved into the pockets of his ever present trench coat. "What did you want?"

"I just..." Dean wasn't sure he should say that interrupting Castiel was what he'd wanted. "I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier."

"You were worried about me," Castiel surmised. "I shouldn't have thrown your concern to the side."

"It's just...you know, I've had a lot of meaningless sex in my life," Dean admitted. "And it's just that. Fun, but, you know...hollow. You deserve better than that," he finished, face burning with embarrassment. It just figured that a being that only started having emotions last fall could get Dean to say the sappiest shit.

"Thank you," Castiel said simply.

"Well...what do you mean, strange conversation?" Dean couldn't imagine what an angel would discuss with a civilian. Unless Castiel used Lucifer's rising as an icebreaker, which probably would lead to a pretty strange conversation.

"She tried to kiss me," Castiel said in the same tone of voice one might use to say 'She threw up on me'.

"And you didn't like it?"

Castiel sighed. "Melissa was a genuinely good person, but I felt it would be disrespectful to Jimmy if I used his body to find pleasure with someone I didn't know."

He should have known it was something like that. Denying himself for the greater good or some warped sense of honor.

"I thought the body was yours now?" Dean asked, swallowing down his curious disappointment.

"It is, but..." Cas trailed off and turned away, watching something Dean knew wasn't really there. "It should be his. He didn't deserve what happened to him. He was only trying to serve his Father. I spoke with him many times before taking over his body, but I don't think he ever really understood what would happen to him. I can't...I can't fix what I've done to him. The only thing I can do is honor his memory."

Cas' gaze shifted back to Dean's face.

"Jimmy loved Amelia fiercely. She was his only lover. If I ever do use this body in that way, I will wait until it's with someone I care for like Jimmy cared for Amelia."

At the end of the speech, Dean released a wavery breath. He didn't know what to say to such an intimate confession or the way it tightened his chest, so he floundered for a moment before striking onto another topic. "So if you didn't care about her, why'd you seem so intent on talking to her?"

"I wasn't intent," Castiel denied. "I was only following Sam's advice to speak with the most attractive woman in the bar."

"So that's your type? Blondes with big tits?" Dean wouldn't put it past Castiel to do something unexpected like fall for stereotypically hot chicks.

"It wasn't her physical appearance that I liked," Castiel explained. "Of all the women in the bar, her soul was the most pure."

Dean gaped at him. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Castiel said, solemn. "You shouldn't judge people by their appearance."

Laughter bubbled up in Dean's chest and he nearly fell over with it. It really did just figure that Castiel would choose a girl based on her sexy soul.

"Man," Dean snickered, striding towards him and grabbing Castiel's arm, pulling him towards the car. "If you like pure souls, why on Earth do you hang around me and Sam?"

To his surprise, Castiel stopped hard and jerked his arm out of Dean's grasp.

"Don't say that, Dean," he commanded, eyes flashing. "You have the purest soul I've ever known."

The humor leached out of Dean as the air between them grew heavy with that strange feeling Dean still couldn't identify. That insane protective feeling that made him act crazy in the bar and made him want to do something right now, something weird like curl his hands around Castiel's shoulders and just touch him.

"Cas."

"I don't like it when you speak that way about yourself," Castiel said and Dean remembered so clearly how confused Castiel looked when they first met. You don't think you deserve to be saved. "You deserve my admiration. More than that. My..."

Castiel's eyes changed. Darkened or cleared or both, Dean couldn't really tell. Only could see something slot into place and the way Castiel suddenly smiled in amazement.

"What?" Dean didn't trust the creepy blissed out 'sure I'll drink the kool-aid' expression on Castiel's face.

"Nothing, I just...something..." And then he laughed. Like actually sort of chuckled and if the world weren't already ending, Dean might have thought that was one of the signs of the apocalypse. "Nothing, Dean. We should go back to the motel now."

"What's so funny?" Dean allowed Cas to tug him towards the Impala. "Why're you laughing?"

"No reason, Dean."

Dean didn't stop bothering Castiel about it all night, not even as they ordered a crappy action flick on pay-per-view and ate pizza together. Not when Sam stumbled into the room hours later with a grin on his face and a story to tell. Nor the next morning while they got ready to finally leave Tuscaloosa and followed Lucifer's trail north.

His answer is what brings the story near to its conclusion. But it's only half the reason Dean and Castiel end up out in that rainstorm together. Because while Castiel may have figured out something important that night, Dean hadn't quite got to the point yet.

* * *

The next few weeks were fairly quiet. Strong storms, unusual earthquakes or odd livestock deaths drew them across the state of Tennessee and into Kentucky. As time went by, they began arriving in towns devastated by disaster only hours after the fact. Dean couldn't really tell if they were getting any closer to Lucifer himself, but until they had a better idea, chasing after the signs was all they could do.

The next part of the tale didn't affect the apocalypse one way or another, but managed to change Dean's life forever.

And all because Dean decided to sleep in the same bed with Castiel finally.

They arrived in Paducah, Kentucky on a Thursday night. The streets were wet with the latest weird storm, although Dean couldn't actually rule out the possibility of it being your typical summer storm outbreak. Perhaps a little fiercer than most, but not raining hailstones the size of bowling balls like in Jackson, Tennessee earlier that week.

When they got to the room, exhausted from all-day driving, Sam dove into the nearest bed, legs and arms a tangled mess that basically precluded anyone else sleeping with him. Dean looked at the floor, then looked at Castiel, who was swaying on his feet and obviously in need of a night's sleep.

Dean just couldn't stomach the floor again.

"Right, you're with me, I guess," he said. Castiel's eyes widened.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, whatever. Just don't steal the blankets from me."

Dean tried not to watch too closely as Castiel removed his trench coat and set it aside before changing into the pajama pants Sam had bought him in Nashville. For his part, he just tore off his pants and crawled under the covers in his underwear. He felt the bed dip when Castiel joined him, well on his side of the bed and the last thought Dean had before falling asleep was that he hoped Cas didn't start humping the bed in his sleep again.

When he woke up several hours later, eyes blinking at the darkness still blanketing the room, Dean didn't remember where he was for a moment. Or maybe he did know where he was; he just didn't understand why he felt a solid warmth at his back or strong arms around his waist. It was a moment of blissful confusion because Dean couldn't remember the last time he felt this good or this safe. Sleep caught at his mind, threatening to drag him under again and he almost let it. He almost melted back into that embrace and slipped into dreams, but then the body behind shifted and a leg pressed between both of Dean's, spreading them. White hot arousal shot to his groin and that's when Dean remembered he was in bed with Castiel.

"What the fuck," he yelped. Rolling over on his side, Dean tore himself out of Castiel's embrace. This wasn't right. Dean didn't get turned on by having another guy between his legs and certainly not the rumpled not-quite-angel squinting at him in the dark of the room.

"Dean?" he asked, voice ragged with sleep. "Are you alright?"

"I'm going for a walk," Dean growled. He stumbled into his pants and shoes, grabbed his car keys and escaped before Castiel had time to shake the sleep from his mind and figure out what the hell was going on.

The clouds hid the moon and that suited Dean just fine. He stalked off into the pitch dark, in the general direction of a city park he'd noticed on the way in the night before. His thoughts tumbled in his head like a bunch of lottery balls in those big spinning plastic barrels. Only instead of numbers printed on them, they said things like, _Fuck me, I'm attracted to Castiel_ and _This is just what I need _and _God, I can still feel his hands on my stomach_.

Dean was concentrating so hard on these thoughts that he almost walked into Castiel.

"Fuck," he spat, startled.

"You're upset," Castiel announced calmly.

"No, I'm not," Dean denied. "I just wanted to be alone."

"In the middle of the night?"

"What better time?" Although, truthfully, after years of one-night stands and failed relationships, Dean was pretty sick of being alone at night. But Castiel didn't need to know that.

"I have to tell you something, Dean." The change in his tone, from worried to nervous and in his expression, from concerned to apprehensive, shook up Dean's insides. For some reason, Dean felt a shot of fear that Castiel was about to leave them. And he might be having a big gay freak-out and wished Cas would go away so he could flip out in private, but Dean didn't want Castiel to actually leave permanently.

"You can't leave," he blurted.

Castiel's head cocked. "That's not what I was going to say." A pause. "Are you worried I'll leave?"

And maybe he was, just a little. Worried that he'd get called back to Heaven or do something reckless and get killed. Gay freak-out aside, Dean was honest enough with himself to recognize that he couldn't handle it if Castiel died.

"Maybe I am," he admitted, flushing and angry at himself for being such a girl. "Maybe it wouldn't be such a problem if you didn't...Fuck! I am not in the mood to be in love with you."

Dean didn't know which of them was more surprised. Certainly Castiel's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, but it seemed fairly tame compared to the waves of mind-numbing shock rolling through Dean.

That was the moment Dean joined Castiel at the point.

It seemed really obvious now that Dean looked back on his actions the last few months. So obvious, in fact, that Dean started to feel really stupid, which totally ruined the odd euphoria he'd only just started experiencing.

It didn't help when Castiel starting laughing.

"What?" Dean asked, defensive.

"It's just…that's what I was going to say," Cas said through his chuckles. "Not in those words, but I thought it was time I told you how I felt about you."

"Well, I'm so sorry I ruined the moment for you."

Honestly, Dean had never tried to imagine the moment when he'd first confess his feelings to the love of his life, but if he had, it would not have gone this way. And it probably would have starred some gorgeous woman instead because Dean couldn't have guessed he'd want nothing more than to press Cas' scrawny male body into the closest mattress. Love did weird things to people.

"So now what?" Dean asked. "You do realize this is not a good thing, right? The last thing we need during the apocalypse is this distraction."

"It feels like a good thing to me," Castiel said softly. "But if you think we should try to ignore it and concentrate on the task at hand, I do understand."

He took a step back, as if to leave Dean there with his realization and that wasn't fair. After all, it wasn't like Dean didn't have a tremendous weakness in Sam anyway. Add another one on and they were still at the same level of fucked, except maybe Dean would actually be getting fucked sometimes. He supposed he should be surprised by how quickly he got past the freak-out, but the world was ending. He had enough other shit to freak-out over. Sometime, you just had to roll with the punches.

Stepping forward, intent on kissing his angel finally, Dean was stopped short by a booming clap of thunder. He had a split second to peer at the sky before it tore open and buckets of water poured down onto his head. Hard heavy drops of freezing cold water drilled into his head and arms.

"Holy shit," he yelped and reached for Castiel with the thought that Cas could mojo them back to the motel room.

Then lightning flashed and imprinted an image on Dean's mind that he would never forget as long as he lived.

Flung out to either side of Castiel's body were great wing-shaped empty spaces where no rain fell. Dean couldn't hear the rain hitting Cas' wings, but he could see the rivulets flowing down over them, waterfalls perfectly outlining Castiel's huge and fucking beautiful wings. And in the middle, Castiel stood with a grin on his face, hands and face upraised and that's how Dean knew there was nothing evil about this storm. He felt Castiel's joy in the nature created by his Father.

"Come here, Dean," Castiel cried over the pounding rain. Drawn like a magnet, Dean went to him, took his hands and tried not to yelp yet again when the wings folded around them, locking them together into a dry and quiet sphere. They were surrounded by a curtain of rain. Dean couldn't see Cas' wings and when he reached out, found that he couldn't touch them either.

"This is weird," he told Castiel.

"Yes," Cas agreed. "I'm going to kiss you now."

"Alright."

The hands Dean held let go and slid around his waist, down his back. Cas tugged him forward by his hips, which told Dean what he had on his mind. Not that Dean was complaining, of course. Nor was he thinking much when Castiel's lips pressed to Dean's and he discovered to his surprise that angels really know how to kiss. Castiel's hands found their way into Dean's back pockets and it was so scorching hot that Dean nearly fainted right there.

The water continued to pour around them.

All was not right with the world, but all was right with Dean.

The End

Epilogue

This was never the story of how Lucifer was stopped. That's an exciting tale to be sure and one that will be told many times by others, but this was a love story. It should be sufficient to say that they lived happily ever after, but sometimes you just want some proof. So, here it is.

Six years later

"What the hell is that?"

Dean stared at the picture taped to Sam's refrigerator. Five colorful blobs danced together in front of what appeared to be a large box.

"It's supposed to be us," Sam explained from his position in front of the stove where he stirred a steaming pot of spaghetti sauce. "The little green splotch is Maryanne," he said, referring to his four-year old daughter. "And the two red splotches are me and Kimberly. You're the yellow glob and Cas is the blue glob. You see how he's floating a little above the rest of us?"

"Oh right. He's flying. I get it." Dean smirked at Sam. "You're getting better drawing all the time."

"I keep hoping your sense of humor'll improve and then I remember you're thirty-six and it's far too late," Sam said absently as he removed the sauce from the heat. "If she asks, you tell Maryanne it's beautiful, ok? It's the first thing she's done in pre-school and she was so excited she could barely sleep last night."

"Will do," Dean promised. He supposed it wouldn't be a lie in the sense that his niece was amazing and everything she did was wonderful. According to her uncle and father, anyway, because Sam and Dean decided to deal with their weird upbringing by spoiling any of their own off-spring egregiously.

"Where's Cas?"

"He went to pick up Bobby."

As if on cue, Castiel and Bobby appeared in Sam's kitchen. Bobby wavered on his feet a little, holding his stomach and made a face.

"I hate the angel taxi," he complained.

"Well, if you would just move to Kentucky with us," Dean said.

"I ain't pulling up stakes just because you think Kentucky is the happiest place on Earth," Bobby shot back, but Dean knew that he was only a few more conversations away from convincing the man to finally sell his place in South Dakota and join them in Paducah. Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, Bobby wandered away to find Maryanne, probably because Bobby never showed up at Sam's without some kind of gift for the kid. It was lucky Sam's wife was there or the men in Maryanne's life would let her get away with murder.

"Hey, Cas, come here, I want to show you something," Dean said suddenly. He saw Sam roll his eyes as Dean grabbed Castiel's wrist and tugged him into the living room.

"What is it?" Cas asked curiously.

"This," Dean answered and drew Castiel into his arms. He'd been working on the car all day while Castiel flew around the country, checking up on a bunch of people they'd saved on hunts the past year and it felt like a long time since he'd awoken that morning with Castiel curled up at his back. "I'm going to kiss you now," he said.

Castiel smiled. "Alright."

So he did.

THE END (for real)


End file.
